


I forgot

by crazynadine



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Confusion, Friendship/Love, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Memory Loss, Minor Violence, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Swearing, what even is this?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 14:58:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20448983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazynadine/pseuds/crazynadine
Summary: Lost and alone, the Soldier is confronted by his memories and the man at the center of them.





	I forgot

He's not sure where he is. Or how he got here, either, come to think of it. 

He knows he's in Brooklyn, in that odd way you just sense something is true. Nothing looks familiar, but it all feels the same. 

Home. 

It's been so long. He's not sure how he knows that either, but it's true. So damn long. So long since he's been back. So long since he had any one place that actually felt like home.  


It's...nice? 

It's been a long time since anything felt nice, come to think of it. He's not even positive that is the right word. Emotions in general feel like a far away concept, belonging to other people. 

Not him. 

He is rarely even cognizant like this. Himself, in his own head. He can't remember the last time he had an original thought. Something beyond the commands he obeys, the orders he carries out. He doesn't know what to do with it. How to process his own thoughts, what they mean, where they came from. 

That should be frightening, but it's not. It is, however, confusing. It's been excruciatingly quiet inside his own head for so long, the freedom to think and feel is honestly overwhelming. 

He knows, instinctively, that he's empty inside. A vessel to be filled when the need arises. He feels nothing, like a machine. Programmed to perform an array of tasks to benefit his masters. 

But now...now he feels too much. Pain. Fear. Longing. Desire. Mourning. 

He's mourning a loss, bone deep and paralyzing. Like when he lost his arm, but so, so much worse. 

He's not sure what he lost, but he knows without a doubt how utterly incomplete he is without it. 

These thoughts catch him off guard. These feel like someone else's emotions. Not his. 

Not the Soldier's. 

But....he's not the Soldier. 

He's not. He's a man. With a name and a past.

That sudden realization hits him hard, seizing him by the neck with brutal force. 

A choked sob rips from his throat as his mind is flooded with memories. Lost long ago in a storm of electricity and psychotropic drugs. 

Sudden flashes fill his mind. Faces and voices he recognizes, but doesn't. Unknown places that feel achingly familiar. The ghost of a touch just out of reach. 

He stops walking. The road stretches on endlessly in both directions, not a soul to be seen on the deserted city street. The tall buildings and tenements tower over him, casting shadows on his metal arm in the waning afternoon sun. He shields his eyes with his flesh hand, casting a wary glance up and down the street. 

The vacant street looms around him, the deathly quiet adding to his unease. 

Is he on a mission? Is he malfunctioning? Is he free? Abandoned by his handlers? 

He can't remember. He's horrified to find he can't remember. This has never happened to him before. 

He may not be a man, but as a machine, he works efficiently. He never has issues recalling his orders or his contingencies.

The soldier is a perfect weapon. No emotions. No thoughts. No desires or needs. Just compliance.

Now that the shell of the soldier has shattered, his soft middle is exposed, and he's terrified.

He's lost and alone.  
He wants to go home. 

The thought is so sudden, he pauses mid-step. His knees shake and he has to lean his back against the brick surface of an abandoned building to stay upright. 

Home. 

The Soldier has no home. Just his missions and his handlers and his Cryo tank. He never needed anything else. Just directives and orders.

But now, none of that matters. He's found himself on this empty street, overcome by the desire to find a place that only seems to exist in his fractured mind. 

He pinches his eyes shut, grinding the back of his skull against the brick of the wall behind him. He can feel his skin tearing, patches of his long hair being torn out by the roots, trickles of blood sliding down the back of his neck and soaking into the collar of his tactical jacket. 

He takes a deep, shuddering breath, desperate to soothe himself. Trying to smother the embers of anxiety smoldering in his chest. He's so overwhelmed, so terrified. He feels like his rib cage is about to crack open, spill his still-beating heart onto the filthy Brooklyn street below. 

A near silent whimper slips past his lips as he finally opens his eyes again. The sun is too bright. He's not used to being outside without his tactical goggles. He squints, sharp pain radiating through his head as he pinches his eyes shut once more. He shakes his head, long strands of dirty hair swaying as he tries to rid himself of the agony behind his eyes. 

When he opens his eyes again, he's no longer alone on the road. His eyes widen, his fists automatically coming up, defensive. 

The newcomer just stands there, a shapeless form in the distance. The sun is at his back, casting him in shadows that make it impossible for the Soldier to identify him. 

The Soldier watches, curious, as the man steps into the light. The man locks eyes with the Soldier and his eyes grow comically wide. A hand comes up to cover his mouth as the man takes a single step forward. 

The soldier rears back, wary and ready to attack. But the man just keeps walking.

The Solider is inexplicably rooted to this spot. Unable to step away or surge forward. As the newcomer advances on the soldier, he waits for his assassin instincts to kick in. Ready to kill or die given the circumstances. 

But that doesn't happen. 

As the man strides toward him, the solider can feel the ice around his heart start to melt. With each step this man takes, another piece falls into place within the Soldier's mind. That hollow grief he was feeling before evaporates. The empty space inside him filling up so fast he feels a little sick. Thoughts and feelings that have been locked behind an impenetrable wall of conditioning and torture come flooding back on a wave of endorphins and lost memories. 

A small apartment with drafty windows and noisy neighbors and that dog that never...

Sore muscles and bloody fingers from long days of backbreaking work for too little...

Begging the druggist for just one more day to pay off his debt for the draughts and the asthma cigarettes and the teas and...

Stacks of papers, covered in charcoal dust and graphite. Scenes brought to life by delicate fingers and a sharp mind. The pond at the park. The storefronts of the avenue. His own face, staring back at him with a smirk on his swollen lips, knowing glint in his...

The feel of soft, delicate skin under his callused fingers. Fine golden hair under his lips, quiet moans in his ear. Sweet cries and desperate moans...

Whispered words in the soft light of the quiet dawn. Promises and declarations and hopes and dreams and...

Gentle movements of his own fingers. Tenderly dabbing peroxide and ointment on cuts and scrapes. Whispered admonishments and promises to always protect him...

All his thoughts are cut short when the man finally comes to stand in front of him. The Soldier thinks he should draw his knife, or one of his guns. Strike first, always. 

But he does none of those things. He stands stock still, paralyzed under the penetrating gaze of this man that has triggered this malfunction. 

The solider looks up, locking eyes with the man...

And suddenly, it all slips into place. 

"Steve..." 

"Hey Buck." Steve smiles down at him, one hand coming up to cup the side of his face. Bucky leans into the touch without thought, the constant knot of pain and fear unwinding in his chest. He lurches toward Steve, desperate to get closer. 

Bucky let out a shuddering breath, hitching hard before a broken sob rips from his lungs. In Steve's arms, all Bucky's stolen memories came flooding back, threatening to drown him. 

His life with Steve before the war. Small, sickly Steve curled in Bucky's lap as they wasted long hours lost in kisses and forbidden touches. Scraping money together to feed themselves and keep a roof over their heads when Steve was too sick to even leave his bed. 

Loving Steve since they were both just children, and finally, fucking finally being loved back by him. 

Then, the war. The smoke and the blood. The screaming and the bullets. Watching his targets fall through the scope of his rifle. Being captured by Hydra. Cloudy, confusing memories of needles and pain and desperation. How he'd wished for death countless times. 

Steve, his Steve, appearing out of the ether to rescue him like his very own avenging angel. Bigger and stronger than any man should ever be. Bucky was so certain he'd died, because this Steve only ever existed in his dreams. Healthy and strong, his body matching his indomitable spirit. But it was real, Steve was real, and he saved Bucky's life, like Bucky had saved his so many times before. 

The memories rush the Soldier's brain. Bucky's brain. Bucky is...he's...

Bucky moans. A high, retched sounds ripping from his chest. 

It can't be true. He can't be. He couldn't. 

"Buck." Steve sighs, crowding the soldier against the brick wall. "Hey, you're okay." 

The Soldier's knees give out. He goes sliding down the wall, landing on the filthy concrete below in an undignified heap of confusion and lost thoughts. 

The fight against Hydra. The fall from the train...

Steve's horrified, sorrowful face getting smaller and smaller as Bucky fell to his death...

Being dragged through the snow, watching through swollen eyes as his broken body left a trail of gruesome red in it's wake...

Then...fragments. 

Years and years of fragments. Too many pieces. Shards too jagged to ever put together again. 

Pain. The thing he remember most is the pain. His own pain, and the pain he caused countless others. Soldiers, common men. Women and children. 

God, so many. 

Bucky's eyes sting with tears. When was the last time he cried? Can he even do that anymore? 

How long has he been like this? How many years has the Soldier been inside him? Using his body as a weapon? Bucky glances down at his metal arm, suddenly desperate to rip it off.

His body quivers, unable to process the mess of emotions and unfinished thoughts swirling through his brain. He feels like he's split down the middle, half James Buchanan Barnes, half Soldier. 

Suddenly, Steve is before him. Kneeling on the ground, hands hovering somewhere over Bucky's shoulders. "Buck, can I?" he asks, voice low. He's shaking too, and for some reason that makes Bucky feel better. 

Bucky falls forward, collapsing into Steve's open arms. It feels like coming home. His anxiety drains from his body and his thoughts settle almost instantly. The horrific images that have been playing behind his eyes cease almost immediately, leaving nothing but the strength of Steve's arms and the comfort of his proximity. 

"Steve." Bucky gasps. "Oh god, Steve." 

"I'm here, Buck." Steve replies, voice hoarse. "I'm here. It's okay." 

"It's not." Bucky bites out, trembling all over. "It's not. Steve, I'm a monster. I've killed so many people." the memories are all consuming. Images of the carnage the Winter Soldier inflicted on the world. The sound of a neck breaking, the feeling of hot blood slipping through his flesh fingers, soaking his body. The hot flames of a fire singing his hair as countless people use their last breaths to scream for death. 

It's too much. It's going to suffocate him. 

"It's not okay." he repeats, feeling utterly lost and more vulnerable than he can recall in his sieve of a brain. 

"Buck." Steve sighs, wrapping the mess of an assassin in his arms. He holds Bucky so close, the soldier can feel his heartbeat against his face. "None of this is your fault. You were tortured. Fucking brainwashed. I read the file. They had to burn your brain, constantly, just to keep you compliant. You never stopped fighting them." 

"I can't....I can't remember." Bucky replied sullenly. "It's all mixed up." 

"That's okay too." Steve assures him, his arms tightening around Bucky's chest. The soldier feels trapped, held so tightly against Steve. Usually, that was the quickest way for a man to get himself killed. 

But Steve could never hold Bucky too tight. Even this felt like not enough. Bucky wanted to burrow his way under Steve's skin, never leave him ever again. 

Love. 

He's loved this man since they were both just children. First as a friend, then as a brother. 

Then, as so much more. 

Steve was everything to Bucky. Always has been. The Soldier forgot that for a moment, along with everything else that ever mattered to him.

Not anymore. He won't let it happen ever again. He'll kill anyone stupid enough to try and take this from him. 

"I don't know how I got here." Bucky recalls suddenly. "I don't know where I am. I don't know if they are looking for me. I can't go back, Steve. I don't ever want to go back. Please." 

"Shh." Steve's voice is low and sweet. He presses his lips to Bucky's dirty, wild hair. "No one's gonna find you. I've got you now. Never gonna let you go ever again. You're safe. Promise." 

Bucky's whole body sags against Steve at those words. 

Safe. 

It's hard for the Soldier to comprehend such an idea. But Bucky believes it. He accepts Steve's word as gospel and feels the hard knot of fear in his chest begin to dissolve. 

Tears are streaming down Bucky's face. He can't recall the last time he cried, but he finds it matters little in this moment. Steve's arms wrap around Bucky, pulling the weeping man to his chest with a strength almost suffocating. 

"Shhh. It's okay. You're okay." Steve murmurs, slowly rocking Bucky in his embrace. "Just be still, it's gonna be just fine." 

"Please." Bucky gasps, sobbing. "Please don't let them take me again. Stevie, I'm so sorry. I would never hurt you. They....they made me do awful things. I didn't wanna. I don't..." 

"Bucky, c'mon. Breathe." Steve's voice is calm. Soothing. Like he's not cradling a hundred and eighty pounds of killing machine. "I don't blame you. The bridge, the fights. I don't blame you. It's not your fault. None of this was your fault." 

Bucky wants to believe him. But as his eyes travel down to his hands, still stained with the blood of some victim he doesn't remember, it's hard to believe it. How can it not be his fault, when these hands had choked the life out of women, slit the throats of sleeping children?

"Bucky, stop." Steve said, voice pained. Bucky hadn't even realized he'd been speaking out loud. 

"I'm no good, Steve." Bucky replied, mournful. "Leave me here. I'm no good. You don't need to be stained with this blood too." he held up his bloody hands, desperate for Steve to see how broken he was. How unworthy. 

Steve just smiled, gripping Bucky's blood soaked hand and bringing it to his lips. He kissed each one of Buckey's stained fingers, keeping their gazes locked the entire time. 

"You have nothing to be ashamed about." Steve insisted. If Bucky wasn't so distracted by Steve's proximity, he'd have scoffed. "You are the best man I've ever known. And you can beat this. You just have to keep fighting." 

"I'm tired, Steve." Bucky sighed. "So fucking tired. I feel like I've lived a hundred lifetimes, and I've been a murderer in each one." 

Steve shushed him again, bending his body over Bucky's and silencing his self-loathing with a gentle kiss. 

The Soldier can't recall ever being kissed. But Bucky remembers the last time Steve kissed him with vivid clarity. Seventy years ago, but still so real in his scrambled mind. He'd be much less gentle then, but no less passionate. Bucky's mouth opens without thought, welcoming Steve's tongue with animalistic enthusiasm. His hand flies up, gripping Steve by the waist and pulling him closer. 

Steve gasps, but it's not a sound of pleasure. 

Bucky rears back like he's been shocked, staring down at Steve's abdomen, watching bright red blood seep through the wide slit in Steve's white shirt. Bucky jumps backwards, landing hard on his ass on the concrete, the knife in his hand skittering across the ground with a hollow metallic sound.

"Steve!" Bucky screams, his voice too loud for the abandoned neighborhood. "Oh god. What did I do?" he didn't even remember holding the knife. He didn't...he'd never...

"It's okay, Buck." Steve said, smiling with blood stained lips. "Everything's going to be just fine." he closed his eyes and slumped against the wall. Bucky lost it, grabbing up Steve's limp body in his arms and rocking him back and forth. 

He can't lose him now. He just got him back. 

The Soldier had a mission. And now he's completed it. 

Bucky has just lost the only person that ever mattered to him in his entire miserable existence. 

"I love you." Bucky wept into Steve's warm blond hair. "I can't believe I forgot to tell you." He's crying in earnest now, tears pouring out of his eyes, soaking Steve's hair. "God, I love you, Stevie. Fuck, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." 

Bucky pinches his eyes shut so tight his head aches. He crushes Steve's body to his chest, wailing in anguish. 

The world around him begins to fade away. Brooklyn melts, Steve's solid, still body slips through his fingers, the heat of the sun on his back disappears, leaving him cold down to his bones.

The Soldier screams, bolting upright, and he's back in his cell. The one they allow him to sleep in while on missions and between Cryo freezings. The course sheets on his sleeping pallet are drenched with sweat. 

His head hurts and his face is swollen and wet with tears. He's gasping for breath, his chest about to explode. 

"Steve." he cries, his voice hoarse. He has no idea who Steve is. He can't remember his dream, or what caused him such uncommon anxiety. The Soldier doesn't dream, and he certainly doesn't feel things like fear. 

"Soldier?" one of his guards is at his cell door instantly. "Did you just speak? Answer me." 

"Yes, sir." the soldier replies obediently. "I had a nightmare. Called for a man named Steve. I don't know what any of that means." as the Soldier is speaking, fragments of the dream start filtering into his mind. A kind smile. A pair of angelic blue eyes. Love. Pure, endless love. 

It's such a uncharacteristic feeling for the Soldier, he feels a bit unmoored by it. 

"Well then." the guard replies cryptically, pulling his radio from his belt. He speaks into it, never taking his eyes off the Soldier. "Yes, sir. This is Beckham speaking. We have a Code 'Captain' on our hands. Please inform Director Pierce, and prepare the MSM." 

The soldier falls back on his pallet with a sigh. He's going to be wiped again. He doesn't care one way or the other. It's standard procedure. Protocol. 

But...this time...he feels something niggling in the back of his mind. An odd wish to hold onto his dream. To keep this fictitious fantasy to himself. 

'You just have to keep fighting.'

So, as he waits for the guards to collect him and bring him down to the MSM, to wipe his mind of the handful of memories he's made since his last wipe, he closes his eyes and tries to remember. To imprint these feelings and thoughts into his brain, hide them somewhere inside where even the Memory Suppressing Machine can't find them. 

Every single second of his dream. Even the horrific ending. Because even if he'd destroyed the one thing he loved, at least he got to feel that love at all. 

The Solider feels nothing. But this man he was in his dream felt so much. 

So the Soldier keeps his eyes closed, and draws up each precious second of his dream in his mind's eye. 

And for that one moment before his cell door slides open, the Soldier can pretend to be Bucky, this man that loved, and was loved in return...

**Author's Note:**

> so....this fic is a dream of a dream i had. suppose this is what happens when someone like me falls asleep listening to sarah mclachlan. the song is 'i love you.' - if you're interested in that sort of thing. 
> 
> this is my first fic in this fandom. as per usual with new fics, i'm nervous. but these things demand to be written, and i am powerless against the lure of my muse. 
> 
> thanks for reading. 
> 
> MSM: Memory Supressing Machine (which Hydra used to wipe Bucky's memories)


End file.
